Aged 16, I got my first magazine cover as a model. In my home town, Novosibirsk in Russia, there was a big advertising billboard with my face on it in the central square. I remember that billboard very well because it was looking down on me the night I got arrested for dealing drugs. It was a surreal experience. The police had no idea that the skinny adolescent they’d just handcuffed was also the glamorous model whose face was splashed across the ad for a national fashion magazine above their heads. As I was taken in a police car to the station, I remember my heart thumping in my chest. I was terrified of what was going to happen. I’d let my family down. I faced a long jail sentence. And I was still only a teenager. How had I got myself into this?

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I grew up as a normal kid in Siberia, where it was warm in summer and -45°C in winter. My parents didn’t have much money, so we used to sell clothes on a market stall to make ends meet. I liked to express my own sense of style – from wearing my sister’s red wedding dress when everyone else chose white or black, to customising my jeans with patches and embroidered stars – and I knew I wanted to work in fashion. When I told my mother I was going to be a model, she was surprised and laughed. “Darling, you look different from a model,” she said. “Look at your face!” I had legs like matchsticks and a flat chest when all the other girls had boobs – she just couldn’t see it. Still, when a local modelling agency advertised for new faces in the newspaper, I went along. I was signed at 14 and started getting work immediately.

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Two years later, I met the man who would become my first serious boyfriend. He was 32 – much older than me – and I soon discovered that he made his money by dealing drugs. When he asked me to help him sell ecstasy in a club, I stupidly said yes because I was in love and didn’t want to lose him. But I was foolish to think it would be a one-off. The next time he asked, I was caught – and arrested. I spent a night in jail, which was awful – the police were so scary and hostile towards me. When my parents found out, they were devastated and I felt so ashamed of what I’d put them through. Even now, I can’t talk about it without crying, thinking how naïve I was to be blinded by love for a guy who simply didn’t deserve it.

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I decided to tell the police everything and, in the process, I brought down some of Siberia’s biggest and nastiest drug dealers – including my then boyfriend [who was sentenced to five years in prison]. But then I was accused of deeper involvement and faced six years in prison. The investigation took two-and-a-half years and it became too dangerous for me to walk the streets alone. My father had heard about a politician who was campaigning for the introduction of a witness protection programme and wrote a letter to him asking for help. On bail, I was given permission to travel to Moscow with my father to meet the man, Alexander Lebedev, at his office.

I liked him immediately – he listened and made me feel safe. He took up my case, hired lawyers and saved me from prison. After my police protection expired, I moved to Moscow to study economics at university and continued modelling. Alexander was my real-life angel, and it took several years for us to realise we loved each other. Although we have never officially married – we don’t need a certificate to prove we are a family – I refer to him as my husband, and we have three adorable children (Nikita, eight; Egor, five; Arina, three). He is 27 years older than me but age has never been an issue, apart from the fact that he seems to know everything – I call him “the human Google”. I laugh about the age difference and I joke with Alexander’s son, Evgeny, about being his stepmother, even though I am seven years younger than him.

Alexander is a well-known businessman [a former KGB agent turned billionaire and newspaper magnate – in Britain he owns the The Independent and the London Evening Standard]. There’s always been media interest in us – and that increased when I was noticed at Fashion Weeks. Street-style photographers, who didn’t know my name but loved my look, began championing me and I started posting on Instagram. At first, it was just a bit of fun – I liked the idea of using it to document my style. My first post in 2012 was a picture of me walking around Moscow in denim shorts, a denim jacket and flats. Then I started posting snapshots of our family life, everything from holidays in Umbria to breastfeeding my daughter in a couture gown. Pictures of my kids would always be the most-liked because they’re so cute. I also started posting videos of my workout routines – I do a combination of Pilates, weights and pole-dancing and training is hard.

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I like to show women that it’s possible to be proud of your body after you’ve had children. I went to the gym two weeks after I gave birth via Caesarean to my daughter in 2014, and I was on the cover of Russian Vogue 60 days later. After that, my following rocketed.

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Once I reached one million followers, I started to think, how can I use my platform in a productive way? I stumbled across the page of a volunteer who was working with sick kids, and I started sending her donations. And then I thought, maybe I could do something similar and raise money for children who urgently need surgery by selling my clothes on Instagram.

That was the genesis of @sos_by_lenaperminova – the first global Instagram charity auction account, where fashion meets charity. There wasn’t a particular moment that sparked it, but I’ve always loved children and I knew, because of where I grew up, that there were a lot of sick children all around the former Soviet states whose families did not have enough money to give them the help they needed. We launched in February 2015 and now we hold auctions once or twice a month on Instagram, where people can bid for exclusive fashion pieces or extraordinary experiences kindly donated by top brands and personalities (designers, models, singers). It’s simple: people bid in the comments box and the money goes directly into the hospital’s account to help fund the child’s operation. So far we’ve raised over $2million and saved 78 lives.

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Families write to us asking for our help and, with my team of three, we check out everything about them to make sure they’re for real. We focus on children who need life-saving operations such as liver transplants or heart surgery. We take the kids who are in the most urgent need, because for them, we are their last chance. The highest price we’ve ever received for an auction item is €120,000, and that was for the chance to have coffee with a famous Russian designer. Another time, we auctioned off a dress donated by the model Bianca Balti for €15,000. Miranda Kerr offered to take a fan to sit front row at a Louis Vuitton show and that went for €25,000. Other big fashion names, including Christian Louboutin, Chloé, Giambattista Valli and Ulyana Sergeenko have been very generous, as have Natalia Vodianova, Elton John and Jared Leto. We are so grateful for every donation.

For me, the key is auctioning off special items – not simply old clothes you don’t want. In the early days of SOS, I sold a dress with great sentimental value. It was a beautiful Elie Saab gown that Alexander bought me: black, floor-length and strapless. I had worn it to a dinner nine years earlier when I sat next to one of my favourite actors, Kevin Spacey. Sometimes I have to pinch myself to remind myself that this is my life.

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Elena with two of her children, Nikita and Egor

Timofey Kolesnikov

I know only too well that not everyone is as lucky as me. I follow up on every child we help through SOS, but some stories stick with me more than others. One little girl called Polina, from Moscow, has cystic fibrosis and muscular dystrophy. She’s a brave, beautiful girl who goes to school despite being a prisoner in her own body. When my son Egor saw a video of Polina trying to walk, he said, “Mama, we have to help her.” He ran upstairs and got his toy safe and emptied all his pocket money that he’d been saving for one whole year. He gave me £10 in coins to give to Polina – it was just unbelievable. We held an auction and were able to raise enough money to send her to Germany for life-altering surgery that will open up her lungs and lengthen her hip tendons.

It’s amazing to be able to help people like this, but it also takes emotional strength. I keep in touch with all the families. Of course, it’s heartbreaking when we can’t help – SOS is like my fourth child and I want to give it everything I can. I talk to my own children about what we’re doing because I want them to know that anything is possible. That even when things seem at their bleakest and most hopeless – like they were for me when I found myself in that prison cell all those years ago – you can make a better life for yourself. And that by making a better life for yourself, you can help others, too. That is a true gift.